In Memoriam Jerry Leiber, lyricist

 

Mike Stoller wrote the music and Jerry Leiber, who died today, wrote the words for songs Elvis Presley, the Coasters, and the Drifters made famous when popular music went from the Big Band sound to rock and roll via the intermediary of rhythm and blues. The duo wrote "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock" and "Yakety Yak" and "Love Potion No. 9." I touched the wrong plant one day this summer and a couplet from "Poison Ivy" sprang to mind a day later: "Gonna need an ocean / Of calamine lotion." But the best Leiber and Stoller collaboration may well be "Is That All There Is?" as done by Peggy Lee. Leiber, the son of Jewish refugees from Poland, was 78. -- DL